58 STRENGTH NOT DEPENDENT ON SIZE. 



windgall on either leg when I left the country : and, 

 what renders it more extraordinary is, he had begun 

 riding her when only four years old. The old saying 

 " an ounce of blood is worth a pound of bone," is not 

 for out ; but it means " if the bone is without blood ;" 



Kr of course, provided a horse has blood, that is good 

 ood, he cannot have too much bone, though some 

 can do wonders with very little. 



Bob Booty, the Irish horse, was not a large one, but 

 for a race- horse a thick one : he, after he had done 

 racing, carried his master as a hack, who was a 

 welter weight. I have often seen him on the little 

 horse, who went under him as if he had 9st. on his 

 back, and I was told carried the same weight with 

 hounds in a heavy country, and Bobby's little white 

 nose was always where it should be. 



I can instance a mare that as a race-horse was a 

 very bad one, so out of compliment to her master I 

 will not mention his name. This mare was singularly 

 small below the knee, but with famous back and loins. 

 At light weights, she was not good enough to start 

 for a hat : when I say not good, I should say not 

 speedy, for she was good and game as a pebble. Now 

 though with 7st. on her in a mile and a half race she 

 might just save her distance, and certainly would not 

 her credit, put lOst. on her, make it three miles and 

 a heavy course, some pretty good race-horses have 

 felt the whipcord to beat her, and could not always 

 do it then : she never seemed to feel weight. I saw 

 her afterwards run her first hurdle-race, and, with 

 12 st. on her, she literally flew the hurdles ; and not 

 only at the first, but at all of them she went a foot 

 higher and certainly ten wider than she had occasion 

 to have done. In her preliminary canter of the 



